THE BLACKMORE VALE. 85 



Magic. He delighted in a gallop, and was never 

 tired of jumping. His favourite country was the 

 Sparkford Vale, which is all grass and flying 

 fences ; and after a day with hounds he would 

 constantly ride home across country attended by 

 his faithful henchman, Dick Anderson. With Mr 

 Digby came in the fast system of riding over the 

 Vale ; and as he valued and bred his hounds for 

 pace, he changed the character of the pack from 

 steady line-hunters to those that could race and 

 stay over the pastures where the Master himself 

 went so well. 



Tradition says that Mr Digby was so unwilling 

 to be baulked of his gallop in the Sparkford Vale 

 that a fox would sometimes travel with him to 

 covert in a basket under the seat of his brougham. 

 This reminds me of a story told by a friend who, 

 when jogging to covert with hounds in a neigh- 

 bouring country, overtook a suspicious - looking 

 donkey - cart that was being led by a keeper. 

 The eager sniffing of the hounds round the cart 

 led her and her companions to guess at its living 

 freight, and they found afterwards that their 

 suspicions were correct. It was about Christmas- 

 time, so probably late hours the night before had 

 led the keeper to oversleep himself, and a donkey 

 was not the animal to make up for lost time. 



Mr Digby's house at Sherborne Castle is one 

 of the great historic houses of Dorset. Of the 

 town of Sherborne, near to which the castle stands, 

 a somewhat terrifying anecdote was told many 



